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18 February 2018

Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.

10.0 |
Independent on Sunday

The music – a delicious hybrid of Portishead and Nancy Sinatra – only serves as a backdrop to the emotional drama
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9.036529

9.0 |
BBC

It’s the most distinctive and assured debut since Glasvegas’ eponymous disc in 2008, and makes you desperate to see where she goes from here. Del Rey’s defenders can take a break: Born to Die does their job better than they could hope to
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8.036531

8.0 |
The Guardian

What Born to Die isn't is the thing Lana Del Rey seems to think it is, which is a coruscating journey into the dark heart of a troubled soul ... What it is, is beautifully turned pop music, which is more than enough
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8.036534

8.0 |
Slant Magazine

Del Rey may be the pop-star equivalent of a teenage girl naïvely playing dress up in her grandmother's vintage clothing and singing into a hairbrush ... but that doesn't make Born to Die any less close to pop perfection
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8.0 |
Q

7.0 |
AU Review

7.0 |
Rave Magazine

Offers nothing more or less than 15 immaculately produced, well-delivered ballads
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7.037075

7.0 |
Blurt

Has more hits than misses and more solidly strange fabulously femme fatale interludes than naff ones
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7.036626

7.0 |
Drowned In Sound

The girl doesn’t know whether she wants to be a classic Hollywood glamourpuss or a modern pop star, so she’s doing both at once
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7.036651

7.0 |
DIY

She may not be the finished article just yet, but like the best pop stars it was us, not her, who needed to catch up
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6.736620

6.7 |
Beats Per Minute

There is a lot of room for Del Rey to grow if she wants to, as she already has a developed style for delivering her ideas and just needs a bit more to say
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6.436816

6.4 |
Paste Magazine

Unplug your modem and these expert pop songs still exist in a world they won’t change. But shutting them out for the sake of it is to deny highly listenable pop songs that defy easy answers
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6.036593

6.0 |
music OMH

There's just enough promise here to show that there is indeed talent beyond all the hype
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6.036661

6.0 |
The Quietus

Aside from her dark, vaguely insane sexuality, and an undertone of sucking malaise, Born To Die remains an aseptically unthreatening spin on Coney Island melancholia, containing not nearly enough cuckoos-in-the-nest and bloody knives in the sink
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6.0 |
God Is In The TV

6.0 |
Evening Standard

6.0 |
State

Born to Die does not exactly deliver on the “Ghetto Nancy Sinatra” sound it touts. Yes, the title-track sweeps into the same cinemascope view as ‘Video Games’, ... but it’s a trick that cannot be sustained over the course of 15 tracks
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6.036604

6.0 |
The Observer

Her album takes the "gangsta Nancy Sinatra" persona introduced last summer on "Video Games" and runs with it
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6.0 |
The Scotsman

6.0 |
Prefix

These songs are most characterized by a deep, deep wallowing self-pity
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6.036769

6.0 |
No Ripcord

She credibly makes us see through her own lens, one that reflects an artist who’s so sure of herself she’ll bypass any critique brought upon her
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6.037154

6.0 |
Under The Radar

The question becomes, is Born to Die more good than bad, or vice versa? Let's err with the former, hype be damned
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6.037226

6.0 |
FasterLouder

While the record itself is almost lost in the haze of hype and backlash, its instrumentation backs up the tales of misery with a combination of melodramatic strings
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5.536614

5.5 |
Pitchfork

The album equivalent of a faked orgasm-- a collection of torch songs with no fire
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5.036778

5.0 |
Bowlegs

Falls short as a full-length record – a real shame, considering this young lady’s undoubted talent
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5.036731

5.0 |
Consequence Of Sound

Listening to Born To Die is like watching a movie billed as a comedy and discovering that the only funny scenes are in the previews; in this case, the high-definition videos of Del Rey performing a pretty good song
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5.048905

5.0 |
All Music

There is a chasm that separates "Video Games" from the other material
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4.236568

4.2 |
Pretty Much Amazing

Born to Die settles into a funereal march of overwrought dirges that make four minutes feel like twenty
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4.036617

4.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit

A series of stories that slavishly reinforce the notion that a woman’s role is one of seduction, submission, or pliability
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4.036705

4.0 |
Rolling Stone

Given her chic image, it’s a surprise how dull, dreary and pop-starved Born to Die is
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4.036803

4.0 |
PopMatters

A deeply, deeply flawed meditation on love, image, and fame in the 21st century, and a collection of ideas thrown at the wall to see what sticks
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4.037497

4.0 |
Entertainment.ie

She is clearly the possessor of musical talent, but the majority of Born To Die isn't a good showcase for it
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2.536728

2.5 |
A.V. Club

The album lives down to the harshest preconceptions against pop music
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0.036622

0.0 |
Tiny Mix Tapes

The most unintentionally depressing thing I have listened to in a long time
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